The trains are just pants!

Monday 11th October

We spent our last day in Beijing walking around the summer palace, an amazing complex of traditional Chinese buildings that provided a great end to our time here. I would happily recommend anyone to come to Beijing, the people are lovely, there is a multitude of tourist attractions to keep even the most adventurous of tourists entertained and above all it is cheap.

But now we have made it to xi'an and are staying in a fantastic hostel full of travellers that has given us the opportunity to talk to people for the first time in ages.

We had purchased three random tickets at the train station and ended up in the cheapy section of the train. I had the privilege of sharing my compartment with "underwear guy" a rotund older gentleman who was sporting nothing other than a pair of skin tight long johns and a lopsided smile. He had a penchant for farting and seemed to be intent on trumping out the entire national anthem for anyone within earshot. I am sure that he would have considered requests too as his repertoire was vast and extremely well practiced.

The other four guys in my compartment, although not as musically gifted as underwear guy, still tried to compete at various points throughout the night. What ensued was a strangely rhythmic composition of methane fuelled man music that under normal circumstances would probably have lulled even the most stedfast insomniac into a gentle slumber. Not on this train though, this train had other noises that badly wanted to compete with the trumping marathon, such as the trains whizzing passed at 100 miles an hour, the track cracking beneath the weight of the train and the other 200 peoples mobile phones and noisy eating practices creating a cacophony of unpleasantness each vying for attention.

I finally gave up on any prospect of sleep just as the train attendant passed through the carriage with his cart of noisy delights, creating a loud banging sound that provided a dramatic finale for the evenings operatic performance.

I ventured down to where Pauline and Tyler were sleeping, Tyler was snoring as per usual but Pauline looked as though she had also enjoyed last nights musical production as much as I had. We simply looked at each other in a sympathetic manner, nodded and then sat there in stunned silence for the remainder of the journey.

Having said that, it is all but a distant memory now, having had a very enjoyable nights sleep at the hostel and with the prospect of going to see the terracotta army this morning I am full of life.

We had a power cut here yesterday which meant that everyone congregated into a single area and it gave us a chance to catch up with loads of different people. We all headed out to the "du du" restaurant for a banquet that set the three of us back just under ten pounds including drinks.

The food on the entire journey has been exceptional and any hope that I had of losing weight has long been forgotten, I have even started to enjoy tofu which is scary. Also I keep on forgetting to mention the mosquito's which are bloody everywhere and seem to have a particular liking for my blood, potentially because of the alcoholic content and nutritonal value that it provides. Hopefully there will be something left of me to see the rest of China but its early days and I am already starting to look more and more like Joseph Merrick (Elephant man) as each day passes (although some might say that I had already made a pretty good start at that before I left).